Lens Adapter's for Canon Bodies

[hippoeater]

Hello everyone!

I currently own a canon 5dmk2 and I have some Nikon lenses that I'm looking to use on my camera ( 85 1.4 , 135 2.0 w/ defocus )

I had Fotodiox lens mount adapter to use nikon glass on a canon body, however I noticed that I got some severe vignetting when mounted and my viewfinded became increasingly darker the more I adjusted my Fstop.

Now this adapter was 80.00 and i see some other ones out there for 200.00+ (Novoflex) and I was wondering if anyone had any experience with any of these - or recommendations.

I'm wondering if these side affects were because of my adapter or it's just something that comes with the territory.

Thanks!

 

[Loswr]

my viewfinded became increasingly darker the more I adjusted my Fstop.

AFAIK, none of the adapters allow automatic aperture control (although some allow reporting of the selected aperture for recording in the EXIF metadata). That's why the VF gets dark as you stop down. With Canon-mount lenses on a Canon body, the lens aperture is wide open regardless of where it's set, and only stops down to the selected aperture when the shutter release is pressed (or if you press the DoF preview button).

 

[Admin US West]

my viewfinded became increasingly darker the more I adjusted my Fstop.

AFAIK, none of the adapters allow automatic aperture control (although some allow reporting of the selected aperture for recording in the EXIF metadata). That's why the VF gets dark as you stop down. With Canon-mount lenses on a Canon body, the lens aperture is wide open regardless of where it's set, and only stops down to the selected aperture when the shutter release is pressed (or if you press the DoF preview button).

Correct. They are fully manual. Compose and focus your image with the aperture wide open, and then reduce the aperture to the f-stop you need and capture the image. It is often better to mount a camera to a tripod, so that you do not move out of focus while doing this.

The only way it could be more manual is if you but the camera into the "B" mode and had to open and close the shutter manually.

 

[dgsphto]

OP - Can I ask you to take pics of your adapter and post them? I am specifically looking for:
1. the detail on the finish of the side that faces the nikon lens
2. The aperture lever design (not the knob, but rather the inner plate that rotates under the ring that sits flush with the Nikon lens mount.

A nice pic for #1 will show #2 as well.

I ask because a lot of sellers claim "high precision" these days and I want to weed out those sellers who don't understand the meaning of high precision.

 

[gene_can_sing]

I think I know what you are getting at.

THe Fotodiox Pro adapters ($80) are really good. There's actually no vignetting problems and it works technically works perfect. But there is a caveat, at least with non 5D2 bodies.

Which camera do you have? I believe the 5D2, does NOT have this issue, but the Canon 60D (and possibly the 7D and t2i) does. Basically, when you use a manual, non-canon lens on the 60D, it remembers the last f-stop that you set it at with an ELECTRONIC Canon compatible lens. So let's say that you were using your Canon zoom, and you last shot it at f11, when you put on you Nikon Manual lens, it will appear really dark because it's set to f11.

This problem really SUCKS. When you take the picture, it comes out with the CORRECT proper exposure, but the histogram and the LCD is really dark, which makes it a pain to do anything.

There are 2 ways around this problem

1) Shot in VIDEO mode. For some reason, video mode resets the aperture to 0, regardless of which lens you last used. Then you will get the proper exposure in the LCD. I'm a video guy, so I mostly use my camera for video and just photos for fun. The big drawback to taking photos in video mode on the 60D is that it's a 16:9 cinema cropping as opposed to the traditional 3:2 photography cropping. Landscapes actually look cooler this way, but it sucks for vertical orientation photos because it's aspect ratio is very tall and thin.

2) Before you use your Nikon Manual lens, put on the fastest lens you have. Ideally an f 1.4. This open the aperture up. It still might be 1 stop off because f 1 is technically wide open. But it will be much brighter.

This is obviously a very easy firmware fix for Canon since it's not an issue in video mode,and it's really LAME that it's an issue at at all. I think it's just to try to sway you from using non-Canon lenses to protect their market share.

I doubt it will get fixed anytime soon, because Canon tends to overlook the essential firmware patches, and they've stop making new cameras anyways.